I was sitting there on the phone, when someone comes up and pounds on the window. I stop my call and crack the window so I can here what the guy wants...He TELLS me to move my car so he can have that spot. I tell him no, and go back to my call. He hits the window again and tells me to move.

He sounds frightening. I would have called the police at this point. I would be worried that he would damage my vehicle while I was in my lesson.

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"The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are."

Oh, Snowdragon, I've always wanted to take violin lessons! Did you start as a child or as an adult? How difficult is it to learn?

I took violin lessons when I was in grade school (5th through 8th grade). It was very difficult for me and I'm sure it was painful for my family to listen to me practicing. In the beginning, they put pieces of tape on the neck of the violin where you are supposed to put your fingers. After a year, the student is supposed to know where to put their fingers by listening. Unfortunately, I think I am tone deaf. I couldn't find the "right spot" without the tape.

My best friend in high school was dyslexic. We joked that my playing the piano was similar to her typing: We tried to hit the right notes/keys, but we couldn't tell when we hit the wrong note/key.

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"The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are."

I work in IT support, providing services to internal “customers”. At one time, we had 24x7 staffing, but the company decided it was cheaper to have a single oncall person handle any requests outside of normal working hours, which are 8-5 Central time. Being oncall is a horrible experience, with one person trying to handle multiple simultaneous calls from home.

One user repeatedly submitted complicated time-consuming requests at 5:15 p.m. She is notorious for not doing the preliminary work that makes our job go smoothly. Her requests had to be handled by our oncall person.

I wrote her a very nice email, letting her know that she’d get better response if she submitted her requests earlier in the day. She now submits them at 4:55.

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It takes two people to play tug of war. If you don't want to play, don't pick up the rope.

Oh, Snowdragon, I've always wanted to take violin lessons! Did you start as a child or as an adult? How difficult is it to learn?

I started as an adult. It is quite difficult, although I would urge everyone who wants lessons to take them. I see you are in Canada, if you are in the GTA look up Sandy MacIntyre ( http://www.sandymacintyre.com/) who can either teach you or set you up with a teacher who fits the style you want to learn. If you are in NS - Try the Cape Breton Fiddle Association to help find a teacher. There is no reason why being an adult should stop you from learning. If you want to chat about it - PM me.

I went to see Despicable Me 2 the other day. I tried to find a time and showing that would hopefully have the least amount of small children present, but somehow ended up with a tiny child sat next to me, whose mother insisted on conversing loudly with her darling precious all throughout the first hour of the movie in a loud sing-song talking-to-a-small-child voice. "LOOK AT THE MAN! ISN'T HE FUNNY! LOOK, HE'S WEARING A PRINCESS DRESS!"

I say that she conversed for the first hour of the movie because she finally left an hour in (with her two tiny toddlers in tow). Early on in the movie there is a very short scene were a bunny gets injected with something that makes it big and purple and aggressive. The little girl next to be FREAKED out at this and kept going on and on "MOMMY! I WANNA GO HOME! I DONT WANNA WATCH THIS! THE BUNNY! THE BUNNY!". Mommy snowflake refused to take her terrified child out of the movie because she wanted to watch the movie and noogies to everyone else (and her small crying terrified child). The movie has some scary scenes in it (mostly just ominous in tone, rather than content) and everytime things got a bit ominous the little girl would keep freaking out about "THE BUNNY! I DONT LIKE THE BUNNY! MOMMY, THE BUNNY". For the record, there were no other bunnies in the movie except for that one 5 second scene right near the start.

The final straw was a scene that frankly was probably too intense and scary for a small child, and the little girl utterly lost it. Finally, finally, Mommy snowflake grabbed her two children and left, and I got to see the last 20 minutes in peace.

For the record, all of the other children in the cinema were very well behaved, and the only child I even noticed was the one freaking out right next to me for the first hour. <sigh> I HATE HATE HATE movie cinemas.

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It's best to love your family as you would a Siberian Tiger - from a distance, preferably separated by bars . -- Pearls Before Swine (16-May-2009)

I also made the mistake of seeing Monsters University the other day in the theater. I always arrive early to get a good seat since I like to be dead center. I was the only one there with 10 minutes until showtime. 5 minutes later a woman and her approximately 4-5 year old daughter arrive and sit RIGHT BEHIND my right shoulder out of 209 remaining seats. I really wouldn't mind if the woman hadn't kept up a commentary to the kid who was actually pretty quiet after getting scared by a loud preview. At one point I turned around and looked at her and she finally stopped making inane comments.

Seriously, if you're going to talk through a movie in a nearly empty theater don't sit where your voice has optimal penetration into someone else's ear!

That happened to a friend and I when we went to see, I think, one of the Shrek movies. While I get that during any kid's movies there will be lots of kids, some of them simply aren't ready to sit through an entire movie without making a fuss.

We saw kids running up and down the stairs (Tiered seating) talking, screeching, and generally being distruptive. But there were other kids who sat through the whole movie, without nary a peep.

What got me was when I was commenting on this to several people, they pointed out but it's a KIDS movie. Why yes it is, but that doens't give them the right to disrupt those of us (kids and adults) who might actually want to watch the movie. I say if your child can't sit through one, then wait until they can.

Even when I try and go when I think there will be the least amount of people, there are always some that annoy me, so I've just stopped going to the movies altogether. I just don't enjoy it anymore.

For movies where the target audience is kids, I tend to go to the 9:00 PM or 10:00 PM showing for the aforementioned reasons.

But quite often, they don't have a later showing for 'kids' movies.

I will hearby admit to being the special snowflake for a kids movie, along with my friend. When I was in university, Disney brought some of the classics back out into the theater. They were showing 'The Jungle Book', in a small theater on campus. There were a number of well behaved kids in the theater, along with quite a few of us students. My friend and I were singing along to 'The Bare (Bear) Necessities' when the kid in front of us turned around and glared at us. Which sent us into giggles. But we did shut up for the rest of the movie.

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After cleaning out my Dad's house, I have this advice: If you haven't used it in a year, throw it out!!!!.

Ah, Shrek. I have not-so-fond memories of taking my then-10-year-old daughter and some of her friends to see it for her birthday. All of the kids were fine except for Stephanie, who - for reasons unknown - decided to be a pest. First, she got up out of her seat (while the movie was playing), walked over to where I was sitting, stood right in front of me, and said "I'm bored." I looked at her incredulously and said "Go sit down." She did - for about ten minutes. Back she came. "When is this movie gonna be over?" I gave her the Glare of Death and said "GO. SIT. DOWN." She didn't get up again.

When I saw Star Wars Episode I in the theater, I was behind a whole row of eight-year-old boys having a birthday party. Part of their goody bag loot was apparently ring pops (like this - a plastic ring base with a hard candy "jewel" on the top). So they had "sticky wars" throughout the whole movie - licking their ring pops and then trying to swipe the sticky mess at each other.

I felt sorry for whatever employee had to clean that up, but the party was clearly being hosted by the movie theater, so I think someone ought to have had a long talk with whoever made up the goody bags for parties

I can't imagine the mother even THINKING of leaving a bunch of kids (a couple of which were not even HERS!!) in the hospital room of someone in labor. What? Did she adopt all her own kids and doesn't have a clue what labor and delivery are like?

I'm also amazed that the hospital staff didn't turn them around at the door and send them home -- immediately. I honestly don't think our hospital would have tolerated this for a minute!

Your poor friend. Hope all goes well for her and that her baby comes into the world quietly and with the privacy this family deserves.

Hope all was well for mother and baby. The hospitals in my area won't allow anyone under 15 in the hospital after 9 unless they are the patient or extenuating circumstances, (family member in ICU, their mother is about to give birth, etc). Even then, they always have to a accompanied by an adult unless they are the patient.

My biggest pet-peeve in movie theaters is the cell-phone. I've decided that if I were rich enough to do so, I'd build a movie theater where every part of the building except the lobby was surrounded by a faraday cage. Any staff or emergency communication within the building could be through hard-wired devices.